The French start-up Wasoria, based in Le Creusot (Saône-et-Loire) and founded in 2020 by engineer Franck Lafontaine (formerly of Neos), has raised €1.5 million to expand its artificial intelligence-powered fire-prevention technology for waste-sorting plants.
Wasoria deploys sensor-filled gantries above conveyor belts in sorting centres that monitor material flows in real time and use machine-learning algorithms to detect hazardous items, including lithium-ion batteries, gas cylinders and nitrous-oxide canisters, before they trigger fires or damage equipment.
The company already claims to have installed around 30 such gantries across France and is preparing further installations at centres in Torcy and Versailles.
According to data from the Bureau d’Analyse des Risques et Pollutions Industrielles (BARPI), 444 fires have occurred in non-hazardous waste treatment and disposal facilities in France since 2010, and approximately one sorting centre is fully destroyed each year with losses estimated at €70-100 million in the latest major incident.
Wasoria estimates that full commercial development may require total investment of €3-4 million and is actively seeking industrial investors from the environmental and artificial-intelligence sectors to support its growth and planned international deployments.
